In the last 48 hours I, amongst others, lost a dear colleague and friend Audrey Brown, who passed away after a protracted battle with a recurring illness. It is a deeply sad moment, as the reality sinks in.

This is my heartfelt tribute and gratitude to an inspirational lady who exuded love, fun, beauty and grace. We hadn’t known each other that long. We met at a TV Presenter’s course in the early part of this year. In fact the group that we were part of had a special connection because of the respective journeys that bought us to this point, and how we wanted to grow and serve others beyond by developing our skills. It was a coming together that was refreshing and went beyond conscious awareness.

During the 5 days of training and into the months beyond, further conversations exchanged, and it seemed we had journeyed far due to the sharing of a common journey that had at its core, the desire to inspire and help others with our gifts.

There is a huge part of me that always hopes that those with that kind of heart will prevail beyond the average number of years a person may have on this earth because we live in a world that needs more inspiration than ever before, in my opinion. This kind of giving is bigger than any one person has to give, and today we lost an inspirational leader.

Audrey would be too humble to describe herself in such terms, and as highly evolved as she was, she still wanted to attend a recent workshop I held, such was her hunger to continue to learn and grow, and be a catalyst for spreading inspiration.

Not many people could genuinely exude so much life and inspiration with a strong, determined spirit whilst battling in the dark with illness. One of our last conversations was how adversity develops strength and character.

For me Audrey shone even brighter in the dark hours of her illness. Even from her hospital bed she was sharing her journey and sending out video clips as her energy allowed, displaying a warrior mentality, a never-say-die attitude, with a continued encouragement for us all to live inspirational lives.

Like an evergreen, she consistently saw the beauty in human beings, she was gracious and so giving. Even in her hour of need, she would cheer me from the sidelines when I shared my inspirational message in its various forms.

Audrey was fun loving, full of life and selfless in her sharing. She sprinkled exuberance for life everywhere with remarkable consistency. She was reconciled with adversity as a part of life, not an intrusion on life, and she met it with boldness and grace.

So as a human being, I feel that loss and sadness deeply. We all grieve in different ways and maybe do battle with difficult emotions, whether they be rational or not, and each person processes and expresses things differently.

However what is also emerging in me very strongly is how this amazing human being showed up in the world with such consistent love and inspiration, the light of which no dark hour could put out. She has held a mirror up to us all, in effect, to show what the human spirit is capable of.

It is this which rises within me, and as surely as the night time gives way to the dawn of a new day, this will galvanize me to continue to develop the best version of me, so that the world, including me, can thrive. She has left me richer than when we last spoke and for that and all I have expressed above, I am truly and eternally grateful.

May we all continue that legacy, take on the baton of inspiration, and share and serve others through our gifts and abilities, to leave this world in a more beautiful place than we found it, just as she did. I feel her cheering on through her spirit.

About Breaking Free Unlimited

As Founder of Breaking Free Unlimited and best-selling author of Breaking Free, Anita empowers entrepreneurs to break free from a life of stagnation, unearth the treasure of joy and purpose, and blaze a trail of true fulfilment, freedom, and inspirational legacy

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